Romantic Violence

by Christian Picciolini

  Bob Oslon was a bona fide dick-sucking fag, both ears pierced with heavy metal hoops, and dressed head to toe in full Village People biker leather. Clark would have bashed this queer. Didn’t bother me much. It was my chance to get inked.

  “What’ll it be, young man?” he lisped, pulling out a ragged-edged binder full of Polaroids of work he’d done, expecting me to go through it to pick a tattoo I wanted.

  I pushed his portfolio aside. “Iron Cross.”

  “What?”

  “The tattoo. I want a German Iron Cross with an eagle holding a swastika on my arm.”

  His dark, fruity eyes took me in. I stared him down. “Whatever. But I’m not doing the swastika,” he demurred, lowering his lashes.

  I didn’t like this guy. Smug fag bastard thought eye-fucking me was cool or something. But I wanted the tattoo.

  “Fine.” I didn’t want to push my luck and have him ask for my ID or turn me away. I could always add the swastika later with a needle and some India ink.

  He held out his hand. “Cash first. Sixty bucks.”

  I reached into my coat and dropped a wadded-up paper sack filled with quarters into the pigment-stained palm of his hand.

  “Jesus, kid, fucking quarters? Really?” he whined. “We’ll be here all goddamn night.”

  After a few failed attempts, I’d figured out how to regularly steal change from the coin-operated washer and dryer in my parents’ apartment building. I used the proceeds mostly to buy cigarettes and beer, but I’d scored big time and had over seventy-five dollars with me. Enough for the tattoo and a forty of Miller High Life. “Fine. I’ll count them out,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Fuck, did the tattoo hurt. Took everything to hide the pain and not wince while he dug the needle extra deep into my left bicep. Though I’d never admit it to him or anyone else.

  As I walked out of the tattoo parlor bandaged and bloody, I knew my body was a fresh canvas begging for more ink.

  They would show who I was. Who I was proud to be.

  An Italian.

  A gladiator.

  An American.

  A skinhead.

  And soon, I’d have more tattoos showing my dedication to the white race and serving as a warning to all those who sought to destroy it.

  One Saturday night, in our general fuck-the-world-and-everybody-in-it frame of mind, my skinhead friends and I headed over to initiate one of our frequent sneak attacks on the Beverly Boys. Didn’t need a reason. That they existed on the other side of whatever imaginary line we’d created was all the provocation we needed. We busted into the garage housing their little get-together, looking to kick ass, but one of their guys held out a beer instead. He was half-loaded already, standing in the shadow of a Confederate flag dangling from the ceiling.

  “What the fuck, Brickolini,” he said. “It’s been a year already. Ain’t you sick of fighting us yet? Have a beer and relax.”

  Stunned silence from both camps.

  People looked at me for direction.

  I shrugged.

  What the hell? The battle was over.

  I reached for the beer and cracked it open. “By the way, that’s not my name. You can call me Chris.”

  Instantly, we forgot all about being enemies, and for the next several years there was an unprecedented bond between the skins in Blue Island and the racist Beverly crew. My sphere of influence doubled overnight. The war had produced a stronger and larger army.

  I’d changed in the few years since I’d found my home with the High Street Boys, and while those years were mostly carefree and innocent, the time with the Beverly Boys was marked by drunken parties and constant fighting. We got together every night at the nearby Mount Hope Cemetery, drinking cheap beer the Beverly crew had stolen from their alcoholic Irish fathers. With booze in hand, we climbed through a hole in the fence next to the train tracks that ran through Beverly and Blue Island to get into the graveyard. We settled in near the mausoleums and sat back to get blitzed.

  We talked racist shit and they ate it up. I handed out cassette copies of Skrewdriver records and passed along pointers on recruiting kids to join the movement. An easy thing to accomplish. It didn’t even matter if they wanted to shave their heads and wear boots—though they usually did; all that mattered was if they were willing to fight alongside with us.

  It took little skill to spot a teenager with a shitty home life. Somebody without many friends. Picked on. Confused. Feeling lonely. Angry. Broke. A crisis of identity. Looking like he—or she—had never had any luck to be down on. Strike up a conversation; find out what they were feeling bad about. Move in. “Man, I know exactly how that is. If your dad hadn’t lost his job, it wouldn’t be like that. But the minorities get all the jobs. They catch all the breaks. Move into our neighborhoods and start getting handouts. Our parents go to work every day to put food on the table while the lazy blacks and Mexicans are cashing welfare checks in their sleep.”

  Before you knew it, there’d be a half dozen newly-shaved heads coming to our weekly meetings and rallies, looking for something to belong to. Some way to change the world. To make a difference. We gave them a reason to belong—to need to be there. We made their shitty lives have purpose. They were just like me two years earlier when I’d been vying for Clark and Carmine’s attention. Now these lonely kids were trying to catch my eye. The sudden control was intoxicating.

  Soon enough, there were kids falling all over themselves helping me make copies of literature at the post office, and more cassette tapes to hand out, spreading the white power gospel. Recruiting new blood. Putting flyers under windshield wiper blades in parking lots. Putting patches on their bomber jackets and getting tattoos. More loyal soldiers joining the war against the non-white enemy. More power.

  I was able to host a recruitment rally in a church once because I’d honed in on Tim Harrison, a fresh-cut skinhead wannabe whose Lutheran minister father had abused him as a child. He had a deep-seated hatred for his dad, so I convinced him to steal the keys and let us hold the meeting there without his father’s knowledge.

  Almost twenty new kids attended that night. I dressed like a Nazi commander in a light brown military button-up shirt I purchased at a thrift store for a dollar, and attached a homemade swastika armband. Flanked by Nazi battle flags that I’d hung on either side of the altar, I told those who came that my vision was to see filthy niggers hanging from every light pole up and down Western Avenue from Blue Island to Beverly. My words echoed in the vastness of the hall.

  The more seasoned skins like Kubiak seated in the church gallery stood up and threw out their arms in glorious salute; the newcomers haphazardly joined trying to fit in, not really knowing what to do. Kubiak pushed aside the Bibles stacked at the ends of the pews to make room for more recruits. Framed renderings of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary hung on the chapel walls as silent witnesses to my venomous sermon. Just like the sheepish Christians had believed that Christ would lead them to paradise, I made it clear to those attending that I would lead them, marching in lockstep, to slaughter the sheep and anyone else who was trying to pull the wool over their eyes.

  From the pulpit I spat words of truth that hung in the air like the pungent, waxy scent of the altar’s candles. “The revolution is coming and without forcing change now, future generations of white kids will not live in a free society. The white power movement is about standing up to those who want to take our freedom away from us, before it’s too late.

  “Look at what’s happening in your schools. Black kids are favored. They can wear racist Malcolm X T-shirts and celebrate race-baiting criminals like Martin Luther King. Teachers encourage them to embrace their black heritage and openly teach about black pride.

  “What about white pride? What’s wrong with that? But speak up and you’re told to shut up. Wear a proud symbol of the white race and you’re branded a hatemonger. Ask me. I’m living proof of that.

  “I’m telling you that we can chang
e that. We must change it or face extinction as a proud people. I will not stand to see our great white heritage wiped out and replaced by scum who contribute nothing to our world. There is a simple solution. A final solution. We must not let them win. We must not let them beat us into submission. We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children!”

  The crowd rose to their feet and cheered. Proper Heil Hitler salutes pierced the air.

  I had them. Their hearts were mine.

  Soon after the meeting, someone who’d attended—a rat, probably planted by the cops—confessed to our high school principal and told him about the gathering and what I’d said. The media caught wind of the story and published a newspaper interview with the principal and staff and students all playing down the truth of my message. But it had validity or else it never would have taken up two full pages. Cops and teachers and the principal all commented on what I had to say and talked about how troubled I must be to say it. I laughed.

  The church got a prominent mention in the article and poor abusive minister daddy had to resign.

  The white power skinhead ideology—of which I was an undisputed noteworthy influencer—was spreading like wildfire. By now, I’d made the call to retire the CASH moniker and agreed to adopt the Hammerskin brand, the name established by the Dallas skinhead crew at that cramped meeting in the Naperville apartment a few years earlier. We had expanded our group significantly and falling under the flag of a growing international network of skinhead cells made sense. But only the name had changed. I had no intention of answering to anyone else.

  I hit the streets. No doubt anymore that Blue Island’s demographics were beginning to darken. Signs of it were everywhere. Niggers sitting on their stoops. Beaners painting their tags on stores, down alleyways. The pungent smell of pot wafting through the familiar aromas of garlic and sausage, spicy tomato sauce and peppers. It wasn’t right.

  Restless, Kubiak and I were ever alert for a chance to clamp down and kick some ass. And now the Beverly kids and a dozen new recruits were right there beside us to help, though they had their hands full cleaning up their own neighborhood.

  We beat the shit out of any trespassing outsiders whenever we got the chance. One of the nastiest fights began in a McDonald’s restaurant on Western Avenue and 119th Street—the road that separated Blue Island from Beverly and Chicago city limits. A few Beverly kids and I had stopped in for something to eat late one night after drinking in the cemetery, and we ran into four belligerent black teenagers standing in line.

  “Well, if it ain’t a bunch of fucking monkeys. You guys escape from the zoo?” Me and my friends loudly expressed that we were the only group with a right to be there. We circled the muds, staring them down. They quickly realized they were outnumbered and scurried out.

  With a roar, we charged out of the restaurant after the four black teens. Fifty yards into the chase, one of them turned mid-sprint, pointed a pistol, and opened fire on us.

  Three rapid shots whizzed past our heads as the smell of spent gunpowder trails filled our nostrils. Then the pistol jammed.

  We didn’t break stride. Rather than scaring us off, the gunshots incited us. These worthless pieces of shit were trying to kill us in our own neighborhood?

  The one who’d taken the shots at us dropped the gun. Mistake. Moving through the darkness faster than bullets, we caught up with him, threw him to the ground. Kicked him in the ribs. The back. The head. Steel toes cutting through his black skin, damaging bone. Relentless. No longer able to defend himself, the jolts to his body from our heavy boots sent spasms through the motionless bag of broken bones.

  The blood that stained the pavement served as a testament to our cause. We had honored the fourteen words.

  Night surrounded us, and the white teeth that were once the only visible signs from this near-lifeless body were now stained crimson with blood. These gangbangers from the South Side of Chicago may have been tough, raised by hardened parents who’d lived through the civil rights volatility of the ’60s, but we were fearless. We had purpose. They may have had guns and street cred, but a greater mission fueled us. Destined to save the world by eradicating the rotting cancer they represented in our society.

  As I stood over the unconscious and brutalized body, his frightened, swollen eyes showed a sliver of life and connected with mine. I realized then that he couldn’t have been much older than twelve or thirteen. A child. I thought of my six-year-old brother. The bloated, bloodshot eyes that gazed up at me from the ground pleaded for his life and penetrated my soul. They could just as easily have been Buddy’s. And for a brief moment I saw my sweet brother lying there curled up in a pool of his own blood. A disquieting shiver cut through me like a dull blade and I felt a sudden stabbing feeling of regret in my chest.

  Sirens cut through the night and broke my daze. Wasn’t until the cops were around the corner that the rest of the guys stopped kicking. We got away, but the event left me feeling somber and dejected.

  The remaining months of 1989 were full of skinhead and white nationalist rallies in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. No longer a quiet observer, I spoke my mind. “Fourteen words,” I’d shout from the front of the room as I greeted everyone with a stiff-armed salute. I was unafraid to voice the rhetoric I knew by heart, high on the respect I got, pumped up by knowing all eyes in the room were on me. I may not have been the oldest, being just sixteen, but I was often the most respected. Tough. Dedicated. Charismatic. And smart. Way smarter than most of the others. Many were there simply for the party following the speeches. Or for the music that was central to any rally worth going to. The skinhead girls. Or the cheap beer that flowed like Niagara Falls.

  Life was a constant redline. The faster I went, the further in my rear view mirror lay comfort. From time to time, I may have felt guilty for my actions and pondered if all the white supremacist stuff I was feeding these kids was right. Logical. It didn’t always go down so easily for me—the anxiety from the constant violence that existed twenty-four hours a day, the hateful ideology I programmed myself with to override the old-world values I’d been raised on and the people who raised me, the stress of leading a group and growing it against all odds. Those feelings all took their toll and created a sense of uncertainty inside of me, but I’d resolved to bury those doubts deep down where they couldn’t be misinterpreted as any signs of weakness. So deep it’d take surgery to uncover them.

  Although there were those few who’d come before me, I inherited the legacy and single-handedly grew the numbers and put my group at the forefront. With Clark still in prison and the other original CASH founders entirely out of the picture, I was where I’d hungered to be. In charge and in a position of respect and authority. Most of my skinhead predecessors may have gone to jail, run away from the cops’ scrutiny, or defected for whatever reasons they had, but I was still here building a monument on top of the foundation they’d laid through blood and sweat. I was somebody now. I belonged. Was valued. Honored. And feared. But the voice in my head begging for reason and restraint kept getting louder. I chose to kill it before it destroyed my focus.

  One night I caught my mother going through my things in my basement apartment.

  “What the hell?” I yelled, grabbing the shirt she had in her hand. “This is my room. My stuff. You have no right to be in here.”

  She didn’t correct me. Instead she trembled, looking helplessly at the swastika T-shirt I’d snatched back from her. “Why, Christian?” she cried. “We didn’t raise you to be this. This Nazi nonsense. This Hitler. All the killing. He was a very bad man. Why don’t you pick an Italian for a hero? Even someone like Al Capone would be better.”

  Her ignorance astounded me.

  “Stay out of here,” I ordered.

  She backed out, momentarily cowering. To reassert her authority, she brought my brother into it, knowing Buddy was the only family member I felt tenderness for. “Alex misses his big brother. Maybe you can stay home more a
nd play with Buddy.”

  Once she was beyond the threshold, I slammed the door in her face and leaned my back up against it. Tired, I slumped over and rested my head in my hands. The rapid knocks coming from the other side of the door infuriated me and I threw it open, shouting, “Leave me the fuck alone and get the hell out of here!”

  It was little Buddy. He began to cry and backed away from me. I’d frightened him.

  “No, no! I’m sorry, Buddy. I thought it was—never mind—I didn’t mean that.” I reached out to comfort him, but he ran away bawling.

  Seeing him cry like that as a result of my words pained me deeply.

  When we lived in Oak Forest and Buddy was still just a curious little boy, he’d follow me around everywhere, and cry when I’d shut the door to my room to get some peace and quiet. It pulled at my heartstrings to hear him so anguished by my actions. Now I’d hurt him with my words and it crushed me. Why couldn’t my goddamn family support me? They’d never made an effort to understand what it was that I believed or taken me seriously enough to listen to what I had to say. It was their fault that this happened. Couldn’t they understand that all I wanted was to save them? To save Buddy? They made me so goddamn furious.

  What the fuck? I was ten years older than Buddy and had responsibilities. What was I supposed to do? Get down in the dirt and push toy cars and trucks around with him? I sure as hell wasn’t going to take him with me. I never knew when a fight would break out. I’d never risk putting him in harm’s way. Should I take him to a rally? No way in hell. I’d keep him as far away from the drinking and violence as I possibly could. No, for now, Buddy would have to be satisfied with me letting him come down to the basement once in a while. But I remembered what it was like to be a lonely kid. I promised myself I’d make an extra effort for his sake. Get some candy cigarettes for him and we could sit on my bed and draw together or watch cartoons for a while. He’d like that. Didn’t take much to make him happy. I’d see if I could find some time. Tomorrow. Or the next day.